Google SEO

RECOMMENDED: Check out the best seo tools you should be using

Graphic by Elliance – First sourced at Search Engine Land

Is anyone else seeing a Google Toolbar Pagerank update? I have TPR on pages from @ April 26 2012. This coincides with the latest Google PANDA and Google PENGUIN update in April 2012. I am definitely seeing toolbar pr update on internal pages.

If you are interested in Google Pagerank….. looks like there has been an update. Pagerank is not the be and end all of ranking in Google obviously.

Thanks to Anthony Shapley  for the tip.

Quick Negative SEO alert tip……

This won’t work for everybody but it worked for me (or rather, I happened across this simple method). But if you have a blog yourself, this might help you.

It appears somebody is doing some negative seo ‘attack’ on the Hobo site as of recently….

I wouldn’t have known this quickly, but for looking at Technorati.

Google Alerts isn’t really that good for links alerts these days and the basic wordpress incoming links feature is pretty much useless.

Keep an eye on Technorati (remember that?) – they seem to throw up spammy blogs linking to your site before just about anything else. Not all blogs will be in Technorati, of course, but it’s something to check for recent blog links to your site and it’s free….Let me know if you’re using any other methods.

 

UPDATED APRIL 2012

NOW TRACKS GOOGLE, BING, KEYWORDS, REFERRERS & 404 Pages.

Marty just updated our simple WordPress plugin we made a few years ago – which you can install on self-hosted WordPress blogs. It nows also tracks the crawling activity of BingBot, as well as GoogleBot, and it will also tell you which keywords were used to find your site.

We tested it with the most recent version of WordPress – and it’s designed to alert you when Google finds a new site you’ve launched – and to track when Google (and Bing) visits the rest of your pages.

100% FREE Hobo WP Bot Tracker for WP

Download it here (FREE – no gimmicks).

You do not need to subscribe – and it’s a BETA – if it cuts the mustard we’ll add it to WordPress.com – Note – this plugin is NOT designed to work with Wp Super Cache.

Plug it in and it will work out of the box. Leave it for a while and you can review the data it collects.

Now you can see how often Bing and Google visits your site… and which pages are crawled the most often.

It logs each visit….

If you want – you can check for broken links based on the urls these bots are attempting to access

we were just playing about at this stage – so we decided to add a keyword logger….

and it will show you where your referrers are originating from….

It should do what it says on the tin. It will log when Google visits your site, and show you which pages Googlebot is crawling. This plugin will (if you configure it to do so) will email you when Google finds your blog.

To Install

• Download the plugin direct
• Go to PLUGINS > ADD NEW > UPLOAD and upload and ACTIVATE the plugin
• Go to SETTINGS, and configure your OPTIONS

Disclaimer – Please Read

This simple plugin is free to do with what you want. It is easy to install and activate, but check out the SETTINGS page to make sure it is configured properly. When you uninstall this plugin, it will wipe the data it has accrued from the database. We have no plans to port this to Joomla or Drupal as some folk asked.

As with all free plugins, use at your own risk - and backup everything before using it. We accept no responsibility if something goes wrong. It works on all the sites we tested it on. It’s released as a beta, so we expect a few wrinkles, and any feedback is very welcome.

HOPE YOU FIND IT USEFUL

Fact 1. The UK is now in recession. You may be thinking of employing a seo company to help you optimise your site. You might even think about searching Google for “best seo company” (if you don’t know any better)…..

Fact 2 – Google just applied the Penguin update to its natural listings.

There are lots of seo companies in the UK – but this is one serp Google isn’t showing local results for.

I’ll leave you to be the judge on the quality of this results page (I’ve not heard of most of them), but do we in the UK really need such an international line-up for this term?

Are these the best results Google can deliver for UK searchers?

 

That’s right…. riddled with US companies for a start. Way to kick the UK when it’s down. It’s not even US seo companies I have come to respect after ten years in marketing that appear in these listings.

That set of results either serves to offer such low quality organic results people search on sponsored ads, or blatantly transfer revenue from the UK to the US. That’s no conspiracy theory – I’m just saying what that page serves, in my opinion, wether or not Google is ‘broke’ at the moment.

It’s a strange thing – because we know Google can create localised results at the drop of a hat when it wants to…..

 

SECOND – I’ve moaned about Topseos before so I will let somebody else have a go…..

Topseos gets two rankings in that result above…..

It is frankly a disservice to the seo industry that that shite (I did mean to say “site” but that actually works just as well….) has got away with (in my opinion) massive (near duplicate) press release spam about questionable (some say fake) seo company ‘rankings’ – and ranks for ANYTHING after Google’s recent ‘over-optimisation’ penalty.

Strange. Is that an indication how much search engines care’s about the reputation of the seo industry? Then again – does any search engine really care if you hire a crap seo company or even a company that will scam you?

Apparently there were those who complained about Google’s results – so an ‘over-optimisation’ penalty was needed. I wonder if complaints are up or down since the Penguin was applied….

The penguin update was supposed to:

“level the playing field”

…reward good sites and good content. Reward natural link profiles…… ummmm.

REALLY?.

It Actually Gets Better….

THIRD. Check out the cutting edge on page seo employed by one of the winners in the top ten…… well done to them!

….and I thought Dave Naylor’s grammar was shite (there’s that word again).

Did Google turn Pagerank off or something?

I’m just asking – as Pagerank – on it’s own – would probably produce better results than that this and a lot of the searches everybody else is complaining about.

There’s even an online petition to Google to REVERSE the recent algorithm changes some think they are so bad. You can even tell Google if you think your site was unfairly penalised.

There’s a lot of ‘unnatural link warnings’ going about….. problem is – the sites with unnatural link penalties are being replaced with sites with unnatural link profiles….

Strange times.

To Be Fair….

To be fair – Bing’s results are ropey as well for this term – wasn’t Bing just telling us about good seo for bing and the importance of good editorial links not long ago? I expect Google to be better, though – even when I am drinking the Kool-Aid.

It’s ironic to compete for something like ‘best seo company’ in search engines, you might very well need to employ the same tactics that will eventually lead to penalties further down the line. Use that for an analogy of every other valuable key term, if you want to.

…. it’s almost as if search engines invite you to break the rules to compete before they slap a penalty on you….

…strange that, isn’t it.

A lot of strange going on at the moment, it seems.

[Google Drive is not available in the UK at the moment. But - it's 'coming'.]

Where will you choose to store your life in the cloud? Dropbox (aff) or Google Drive?

NOTE – The following chart says Dropbox had 2 GB free storage as it did – but Dropbox now offers 5GB of free space now same as Google.

 

Maybe start with the privacy policies of the two favourites – Dropbox and Google Drive:

Dropbox

By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.

or

Google Drive

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

To be impartial… both privacy policies (and Microsoft (Skydrive) and Apple (ICloud) cloud storage offerings privacy policies) can be interpreted to be very different or pretty similar. Discussion here.

Using cloud storage services creates a dilemma applicable to much of the Web. We have to give up some privacy and rights to do all the cool stuff we want to do. If I want to use Google and Facebook’s services, I have to accept that the companies can access that data at will and could give it to the Feds, if pressed. Basically, if you don’t want to give companies access to your data, don’t sign up. Venturebeat

Food for thought: Dropbox isn’t tracking and recording everything else you do, though. Dropbox isn’t broke, either by the way. In fact – Dropbox is amazing and always has been. I will be keeping my life on Dropbox for now. I keep my photos and music in ICloud for the moment.

*I couldn’t find the original creator of that comparison chart or I would have credited it.

** I have used my old affiliate code for dropbox although all I get if you sign up is free space (and I am actually maxed out). Last month though I got a bonus upgrade for passing this code about.

Google has a name for the new update it released earlier in the week – PENGUIN.

Penguin was supposed to target ‘webspam’, but in fact, nuked a lot of other types of websites, and apparently, a lot of websites that have not been involved in any ‘link-schemes’, for instance.

Read this first though:

My advice to people worried has been this. The update launched on April 24. Look at your search-related traffic from Google immediately after that date. Do you see a major drop compared with a day or two before? If so, you were probably hit by Penguin. See a rise in traffic? You probably benefited from Penguin. See no change? Then it really had no impact on you. SEL

If your website lost rankings on April 24, or disappeared altogether, and you think you have been hard done by …… you can tell Google here.

A LOT of webmasters are, well, no less than OUTRAGED, at what Google has done this month.

There are MANY complaints on the actual post from from Google about the Penguin Update, (although it’s usually only complaints you hear about as actually telling people you are winning in Google is not usually the best tactic)!

Here’s one:

I built a public benefit website that for 8 years has helped thousands and thousands of addicts find addiction treatment for free… We were able to provide the service through the industry paying for featured status for their centers in our directory of treatment centers… Harvard’s addiction hospital links to us, as well as a number of super picky super high quality websites… A few years back I started to notice crap links pointing at the site… Then Panda came and the site lost half it’s traffic… We submitted reinclusion requests, we sent notices for sites to remove links to us and informed Google, and now this! Now our site is nowhere to be found, and competitors (who are no doubt paying link companies to take down certain competitors thanks to the algorithms changes) have won! Well done Google… You took a true public benefit site out of the rankings (one with a database of treatment centers more complete than the U.S. government’s), and replaced it with referral sites (of course, the exact-keyword match .com) and individual treatment centers that charge people in dire need of help (and usually broke) scores of thousands of dollars for treatment, because they can afford to bring down the real good-guys that have been helping people for years by pointing links at them. Well done Google.

One can help feeling that with all these changes in Google over the last few years, that Google is at war with smaller sites that try to make a living in Google natural listings, and indeed, results they are testing where there are almost NO NATURAL LISTINGS, that Google’s main aim is to force more people into using Google Adwords (where Google makes all it’s profit).

Time will tell if this is a waste of time or not, or another fishing trip for Google Sea Lions.

I’ve added a note about the actual search for “Website Lost Rankings In Google” on our new Facebook page

That’s a quote btw from possibly the hottest forum on the web at the moment…..(EDIT – about the Google Penguin Update or Google Webspam update, as it turned out, that affected A LOT of webmasters – not just the type Google would label webspammers).

Google has dropped the nuke

…. from a ‘webspammer‘ (?) i don’t know –  although I don’t know him or her and I would hate to ‘label’ anyone… For all I know it could be a Google employee –  as Google just posted it’s rolling out an algo update which will ‘level the playing field’:

Probably not, though.

If Google didn’t win the war today…. they certainly dropped a nuke on a particular battlefield of it.

 this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods (GOOGLE)

Nuked!

After checking their rankings (aff) I assume, the forum posters went on to elaborate how this algorithm is treating them:

Here we go again. This has gone from an attack to a massacre.

I have always thought if you want to know if Google is winning the war against webspam, as labelled by Google itself – you listen to the people doing it –  and a lot of them are talking. Actually – it’s pretty clear it’s NOT just ‘webspammers’ as GOOGLE labelled them, that are getting hit.

It is way to early to decide if these guys are the experienced ones or not, of course.

I think they may have rolled this change out now in the UK. Almost all of my site have been wiped out!

there’s more

I got hosed bad too, about 4 hours ago.

and more

If these SERP changes I’m seeing hold, we are gong to need to turn off that “profanity” filter because this is a blood bath!

and more

Bah, will this madness never end. The fallout from this algorithm change is shaping up to be pretty messy

and more

A ton of my sites have just tanked big time…….in fact rankings in a lot of my niches have taken drastic changes. My days as an internet marketer look to be numbered….

and

I think my days as an internet marketer are numbered too.

It goes on and on – read the forum posts for more. I don’t want to nick ALL the forum content.

I also think some of these webmasters and/or  being a bit hard on themselves. If you can spam – you can probably market a site in Google, without spamming (if that’s what they have been up to).

Where Did It Come From?

I found this comment interesting when the discussion moved to how Google had tracked them down…..

it has to be how many domains link to the same 10, 50, 100, or 1000 or more domains. These are link schemes, doesn’t matter what the anchor is.

It appears a certain type of linkbuilding will be less effective from this point on.

I can’t see anybody going to the hassle of building a private network letting inexperienced webmasters into it…. so it probably just got a lot more expensive, too.

So did white hat seo btw. A LOT more expensive.

IS SEO Finally Dead?

NO.

And even before white hat seo everywhere scream hallelujah and start partying…. consider this:

I see a site no1 in Google on TONS of the same EXACT MATCH keyword anchor text - ranking on ZERO  diversity – ZERO organic links –  all the same keywords – the only difference?

The links are from real sites.

THAT’s a problem Google cannot blame on ‘webspammers’. That’s a problem Google invited by the way it actually works to rank pages, and has done since it started.

So in a lot of ways – it’s still the same as it ever was.

White hats still have lots to complain about by the looks of it, for now.

Strike ONE?

Google evolves. Spam evolves. Google evolves. Spam evolves.

Though I don’t know how spammers (and no, I am not talking about anyone in particular) can have the stamina to keep up, especially if Google intends this to be the first of a few nukes…. the fear will be enough to put a lot of them of for a while, that’s for sure.

Fallout Cloud

The fallout cloud is rising…. it’s probably going to take time to settle on the web, so it’s too early to say what the final result of all this will be…

One of my next posts may be about this next comment….

soon it will be nothing but name brands because they are the only ones who can really create buzz and backlinks “naturally” - seriously, who the F wants to link to my los angeles personal injury website… no one gives a sh!t

Collateral Damage?

Indubitably.

The reports will be in shortly….. no doubt.

Can a competitor hurt your site by pointing lots of links at it….. this is very interesting.

Dan apparently annoyed a few people….

and they decided to use his site as an example how NEGATIVE SEO can actually work to destroy a website rankings….Dan spotted his rankings take a nosedive, – EDIT – Dan got a message from Google about unnatural links…..

http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/m/#!topic/webmasters/Azfly-iRtLs

the person who had a problem with his liaison with Matt Cutts decided to make an example of him…..

Pixelgrinder and I conducted a little experiment on whether negative seo was possible in the current climate – we felt it was important to know whether it was possible for a site to be negatively affected completely by outside influences. We carried out a massive scrapebox blast on two sites to ensure an accurate result.

http://trafficplanet.com/topic/2369-case-study-negative-seo-results/

You can see the results of this activity below:

Can a competitor hurt your rankings with NEGATIVE SEO? 

Dan commented:

Both sites have received “unatural links” messages in Webmaster Tools. Neither site has had a “link building” campaign ever. By using 3rd party tools (e.g. Majestic) I can see a lot of unnatural links pointing at both sites, but I didn’t put those links there.

Someone in the forum mentioned:

Also if you look at the changes Google has made to their guidelines, it paints another picture again.
“Can competitors harm ranking? There’s nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you’re concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don’t control the content of these pages.” Then, in November, it got “slightly” modified… just a TINY fraction too:
“Can competitors harm ranking? There’s ALMOST nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you’re concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don’t control the content of these pages.”
Wow, what a difference one word can make! So hang on, saying “almost nothing” means “can”, no matter which way you spin it. Then on March 14th, they caved.
“Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you’re concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don’t control the content of these pages.” -http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356  In case you missed it, the key difference is in that first line:

You can see it’s changed from “nothing” to “almost nothing” to “perfect political answer”

So – can a competitor hurt your rankings? On their own? Or do you need to be doing other things as well….?

Tell me someone who has heard of Google, and who IS NOT trying to rank higher….. ?

Where does this leave us if negative seo is alive and well?

Scary times indeed – you now seem to HAVE to keep an eye on the types of links you have pointing at your site, ESPECIALLY if you are actively promoting your site on top of this – I know this only too well, too.

I would say this test has proved to be a test Positive.  Keyterm: SEO Book
Check Date Rank URL Found

Apr 18, 2012 —- Position 41
Mar 28, 2012 —- Position 3
Mar 26, 2012 —- Position 3
Mar 23, 2012 —- Position 3
Mar 22, 2012 —- Position 3
Mar 21, 2012  —- Position 8
Mar 20, 2012  —- Position 8

So – the blackhats think this Negative SEO example has been successful.

Dan was kind enough to leave a response i the comments…..

Hi Shaun. Unfortunately, this “test” hasn’t yielded anything yet. Two SERPs they claim to have moved are [seo] and [seo book]. For [seo] I didn’t get any referrals (nearly zero) from this SERP until March 22, right after they started. Spiked all the way up to page 1 about 4 days in, held up for a few days, then dropped back down to a lower position. Probably higher than it was before still, since I am getting a handful of referrals per day now.

Verdict: Negative SEO Fail. Possibly the opposite of the intended result since I got traffic I never got before. Still am getting more.

For [seo book] they drove it up from the middle of page 1 (5-9 is pretty normal, page 2 is not unusual) all the way to #2, then it dropped down to #3.

I moved the site from Rackspace Managed to Rackspace Cloud last week, because the old server literally could not handle the latest WordPress.

Unfortunately, the theme I’ve been using since 2007 broke on the WP upgrade, and I had to deploy a new theme, more or less chosen at random because I was running out of time. Which changed run-of-site internal links from [seo book] to [Home]. Last time I did that it dropped to page 4 within a week. In this case, it’s dropped to page 3.

It’s possible that the drop was not more dramatic, because the “negative SEO” linking is actually providing some ranking boost. Verdict: Inconclusive, but I will gladly take your even-money bets that it will be back on page 1 in a week or so.

I’ve been seeing this more and more over here in the UK the last week or so – and I wonder if it could be a glimpse of the not two distant future.

I tried a few random searches – this serps for ‘office cleaning services’ was interesting.

The other day when I was presented with a screen-shot like this, the next 10 PAGES of organic results were all, 100% local Google Places info.

That’s 3 organic results in the top 100 results in Google.

Chances Are, You Are Clicking on Google

On this search results page (above) there is:

• about 100 links to Google itself (not including the links that bring up the preview!)
• 11 sponsored ads
• 3 links direct to business website from Local Places info
• 7 links that lead you to an organic listing

Ultimately – 3 traditional, natural, or organic, search results. Lordy.

Peek

Under all that local ‘layer’ – there is actually a decent set of results, as soon as you hide your real location from Google.

As a search marketer, I know what I prefer. Perhaps my seo glasses are obscuring my user vision.

Time To Bing?

The second result is very similar to Bing’s results (ironically even without all the ad clutter!) and honestly makes me question why I am not using Bing these days, especially as I often find this local layer annoying.

They seem to have innovated enough to get to a virtual  clone of the Google I loved (and can access if I hide my location from Google) and by and large – the results are very similar:

One day Google users might wake up and ask WTF has the interwebz gone, if this localisation of the web to push up Adwords dollars continues.

For the first time in a long time, I find myself questioning which search engine I should be using to give me access to the ‘web’.

Anyway – 3 organic listings in Google is not much to aim for if it does transpire to be the future serps.

3 organic listings would be a lot easier for Google to police, as well.

Something like – [If] top 3 [change] with position 10 [jump] then [algo check or manual check - especially on top transactional results] and if spammy or affiliate…. torch.

[Comments Off - Some technical issues going on we can't address right now]

A few years ago, I tested if Google indexed and used the text in your meta description tag. In that test, Google did not count the meta description.

That test page now shows the meta description tag in Google, and is being treated much the same way as Google treats the ALT tag (*attribute) – that is – counting the text found only within the meta-description – and lending it weight – although very very minimal weight.

Here’s the meta:

Here’s the SERP result:

That text and number above is only in the meta description……. and this test seems to clearly shows Google using the meta description in terms of relevancy for a keyword search (albeit a very very weak signal):

As I said – previously, this test did not show this.

Here’s todays result for my test query:

Here’s the same result a while back:

Interesting days if it is. It LOOKS on the surface as if Google is definitely counting the meta description tag ON THAT PAGE at least. It’s quite hard to test too, as the meta description is prime scraper material, and most meta descriptions appear on lots of scraper sites.

Perhaps – Google has turned on the meta description to look for over optimisaton for this new ‘over-optimisation’ penalty we’ve been hearing about?

Anyways – do your own tests if you want to confirm or rebuke. My test page could be compromised.

Interesting that Matt Cutts mentioned the meta description in his last video….

Maybe the meta description tag is used a little more, today, by Google, than they come right out and say……

Not JUST for click through rate…..an actual relevance signal we can see in the serps?

 

NOTE – Sorry – comments off I have problems with the blog at the moment. You’ll need to use Facebook or ping me on Twitter if you think I a have made a boo-boo.

 

Graphic by Elliance – First sourced at Search Engine Land

I’m seeing a Google Toolbar Pagerank Update on pages of this site and on some new sites launched recently. I think that would make it about 3 months since the last network update.

Does anyone care about Google Toolbar Pagerank these days? I still look at it, I have to say. It’s certainly more accurate as a metric of ‘quality’ than it used to be only a few years ago – I certainly don’t chase it these days, though.

(This will be my last ever post on Topseos. I have also been told I am not allowed to play on Twitter today as I have excel spreadsheets to work.)

When I wrote my post about Tops SEOs recently (which was retweeted some very influential seo) and questioned the reporting by the Drum Magazine in Scotland, I found it pretty difficult to find any of the tons of bad press on Google about Topseos I knew existed. The articles I am looking for are buried under a TON of self-promotional Topseos press releases and a myriad of Topseos domains and subdomains in (in my opinion) an attempt to bury all those complaints about Topseos, written by trusted seos in the industry.

IN FACT – I couldn’t find ONE good editorial link to Topseos site (that I would be proud of) that I didn’t question the editorial authenticity of it. Funny….

So I thought we could have our own little awards ceremony and list the top complaints I could find about Topseos.

Contenders for Topseos Complaints Awards 2012

ADDED: Disclosure: I don’t think TopSEOS is a scam. I just think it needs to be A LOT more transparent in it’s practices, claims and promotional material.

1	Topseos Scam While drinking Santa’s milk and spying on a few of my competitor’s websites (oops), I noticed they had a fancy graphic of an award claiming their link building tool was….
2	TopSEOs.com – A Review of the Top SEOs Paid Rating Service | SEO Book.com Who is going to pay to tell people that they are good enough and their lives are fine as they are? A fundamental truth of advertising is that advertising the truth usually isn’t very profitable – …
3	TOPSEOs Continues Deceptive Practices | Search Marketing Wisdom TOPSEOs was built on deception, article scraping, and bait-and-switch practices.  The industry cried foul, [Name Removed] blew it off as motivated by ulterior motives, I called him out, and 3 days later they issued an official apology, vowing to change.  Fast foward a full month, and they continue their ways, laughing in the face of reality…
4	TopSEOs  After the SEO community cried out, and lashed out, at Top SEOs for alleged deceptive practices the TopSEOs brass rushed out to do what they do best the most, they created some press releases. They made claims that they have listened and will clean up their act. Did they? Not according to Alan Bleiweiss in his Top SEOs Continues Deceptive Practices article.
5	TopSEOs.com $15,000 per month listing fees There has been a lot of talk recently about how TopSEOs.com might not be the Independent Authority on Search Vendors they claim to be.
6	TopSEOS – Why I don’t display my numerous TopSEOs awards | Net Magellan A long time ago I alerted my friend Edward Lewis about this company that purported to rank SEO companies and awarded them badges. I had been working as an in-house SEO at a large IYP…
7	TOPSEOS User reports and information about . TOPSEOS bestwebdesignagencies.com http://www.bestwebdesignagencies.com/ contacted our firm after ranking us multiple times in their fraudulent ranking
8	TOPSEOs – An Independent Authority? I wrote about TOPSEO’s earlier this month. Since I’m new to TKG, I asked around to see if we would’ve gotten involved with this organization years ago….
9	TOPSEOS - An Independent Authority? I don’t care if you’re tired of seeing TOPSEOs at the moment. This is something you MUST see to really understand what this organization is doing. I understand why folks around here are somewhat reluctant to get involved as many of you may be paying for your rankings over there. Or, you’re promoting their service on your website properties. I’m guessing some of that will come to a halt here in the near future. There is too much garbage coming out of the woodwork in regards to this company and their related entities.
10	Topseos scam. STAY AWAY I need to vent- topseos.com is a SCAM. In order to even be on their so-called list of TOP seo firms you must pay- and pay BIG. I sent an email today and one of the owners of the company said that it would cost $1,000 per month to even be ‘considered’ and ranked on ONE list.
11	TOPSEOs Apologizes – Legit or more Deceptive Business? | Search Marketing Wisdom  There’s been a flurry of renewed activity in the past few days regarding the fact that TOPSEOs has been caught using deceptive business practices in their operation.  Apparently someone at TOPSEOs, perhaps [Name Removed] himself, finally felt that enough pressure was being applied, because yesterday morning (April 28th), a press release was posted through PRWeb.com where TOPSEOs issued an official apology “to the community” for “confusion”, and where they vow “Changes to the Site”.
12	TopSEOs Infamous for Fake “World’s Best Local Internet Marketing Awards.” TopSEOs Infamous for Fake “World’s Best Local Internet Marketing Awards.”Six reasons you should steer clear of TopSEOs and those who market the acceptance of their “World’s Best Awards.”
13	Topseos.com Awards For Best SEO Company Not Transparent Enough Apparently Top SEOS produce rankings and award badges for best seo companies in various countries (including the UK) … except folk are of the opinion you might have to pay TOPSEOS.com thousands
14	Topseos – ONE MORE COMPLAINT AGAINST TOPSEOS – ARE THEY A SHAKEDOWN OPERATION OR LEGITIMATE SERVICE? This week’s buzz in the SEO community is all about complaints against TOPSEOs (and questions for [Name Removed], one of their owners) – a company that sells rankings and awards within the SEO industry.  While they bill their rankings as a “competition”, people from a number of highly reputable companies in our industry  have come out essentially saying that TOPSEOs is nothing more than a shakedown for money.
15	TOPSEOs Deceptive Practices – An Interview with [Name Removed] This week’s buzz in the SEO community is all about complaints against TOPSEOs (and questions for [Name Removed], one of their owners) – a company that sells rankings and awards within the SEO industry.  While they bill their rankings as a “competition”, people from a number of highly reputable companies in our industry  have come out essentially saying that TOPSEOs is nothing more than a shakedown for money.
16	Topseos - TOPSEOS DECEPTIVE PRACTICES This week’s buzz in the SEO community is all about complaints against TOPSEOs (and questions for [Name Removed], one of their owners) – a company that sells rankings and awards within the SEO industry.  While they bill their rankings as a “competition”, people from a number of highly reputable companies in our industry  have come out essentially saying that TOPSEOs is nothing more than a shakedown for money.
17	Topseos - TOPSEOs Deceptive Practices – An Interview The real concern for me with respect to TOPSEOs is the fact that they have no problem utilizing the Bait & Switch tactic. Potential clients think they are taking action on TOPSEOs.com to contact Company A but get Company B instead. Bait & Switch is fully illegal, as in AGAINST US LAW. Anyone who has suffered through this should contact the Better Business Bureau immediately, or companies like TOPSEOs are going to stick around.
18	Topseos - My company has been in Top seos in the past, but because we do not buy their leads now, our ranking has dropped. They claim to simpy “evaluate” seo companies, however, that is loaded with B.S. They tell consumers that they should look at their rankings because they have a stringent policy of ranking. Well, if you think that stringent rankings involves how much you are willing to pay Top SEOs, then I guess you should use them! TOP seos is a total scam. If you are person trying to evaluate SEO companies, dont use them. They lie.
19	Topseos - TOP SEOs is a SCAM !! Lately many people must have seen SEO companies publishing results about getting top ranked as the best seo company in a given country or best link building company in a given country by TOP SEOs so i decided to look into it further. One of my old client ranks ranks at position one for best seo company in UK for almost last 1-2 years and he told me that they pay a large chunk of money to top seos to maintain this listing. My partner in Australia asked top seos for the top spot in Australia but they were told that its already booked by the same UK company and they can get the 3rd position and lately the UK company stopped their operations in Australia and we were given the top spot again for money. So in short TOP seos is basically a SCAM and there is no actual research done for ranking the SEO companies on the basis of the seo services they provide.
20	Topseos - Verified SEO: The Latest SEO Scam? topseos.com. a company claiming to rank SEO companies on the service they provide and then supplies them with badges listing their rankings to use on their website and emails etc.   I came across them a couple of years ago and thought it would be good to get the SEO company I work for reviewed and listed so we could use it in marketing collateral, after all, looking at the criteria we ticked all the boxes to rank well.  So we contacted them to ask for a review and inclusion in their rankings and how we got included. Their response? “You need to pay” or to put more detail on it, you have to pay anything from £400 per month to £1800 a month to be considered for rankings.  Hardly sounds impartial does it!
21	Topseos | Ripoff Report Directory | Complaints Reviews Scams Lawsuits Frauds Reported Topseos.com or Top Seos rates and reviews companies based solely on how much they PAY, the more money you give Topseos.com the better your rating. Basically I can be a crappy SEO company, pay Topseos.com 1000′s of dollars and they will say I’m number one!
22	Topseos – Fell for TopSEOs…advice? So yesterday I check out their site and we were ranked #1 for SEO Copywriting. For about two seconds I was jumping for joy…but after that I got sick to my stomach. In all the chaos with end of year stuff and the holidays I never considered the fact that they didn’t take any references. They never evaluated anything. Here we were ranked #1 and they couldn’t possibly know anything about us. Not to mention that there are plenty of more established SEO Copywriting companies. I’m starting to freak out…
22	Topseos – Fell for TopSEOs…advice? So yesterday I check out their site and we were ranked #1 for SEO Copywriting. For about two seconds I was jumping for joy…but after that I got sick to my stomach. In all the chaos with end of year stuff and the holidays I never considered the fact that they didn’t take any references. They never evaluated anything. Here we were ranked #1 and they couldn’t possibly know anything about us. Not to mention that there are plenty of more established SEO Copywriting companies. I’m starting to freak out…
23	Topseos - TopSEOs: Kill The Hypocrisy, It’s Time To Take a Stand Yesterday a press release, uncritically regurgitated by The Drum, made the rounds on various social media platforms. It concerned a company’s “number one UK SEO company” ranking, as awarded by none other than TopSEOs. Aside from the editorial blunder of publishing this drivel, there are massive levels of fail in evidence here. Anyone in the SEO industry who can rub more than two braincells together knows that TopSEOs is a scam (as should be evident from the links provided later in this post).
24	Topseos - The Stupidity Behind TopSEOs – Best SEO companies in Australia So in a few words: If you want us to rank you for what you want to be ranked… you need to pay 1K per month. mmm fair isn’t?

So who actually wins the Topseos Complaints Awards 2012 – you ask?

Well, that’s going to be difficult as there could be legal matters. I dont want people putting the Hobo logo on their sites saying I rated them as a TopSEOS Complainer. I will need to get some disclaimer….. hang on….

I will quote this bit from Topseos – which basically says my rankings awards aren’t worth the bits they are written with – that should protect me:

User agrees to not hold topseos.com and/or [Name Removed], LLC and/or any members and/or any managers and/or any of our partners and/or suppliers liable from any decisions they take. Furthermore, [Name Removed], LLC is not liable for any statements, representations, descriptions, comments, or opinions posted on the Site.  [Name Removed], LLC cannot guarantee the accuracy, integrity, or quality of Rankings. Under no circumstances will [Name Removed], LLC or any third-party providers of the Rankings be liable in any way for any Ranking, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any Ranking/s, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of the Ranking/s.

OK – with my disclaimer out of the way – I can now present the Topseos Complaints Award 2012 to……

Winners!

1. Alan Bleiweiss – Topseos Complaints Awards 2012 • Gold Winner | Twitter (follow him and show your appreciation - he needs some followers to get over 5000)
2. Edward Lewis – Topseos Complaints Awards 2012 • Silver Winner | Follow Edward On Twitter but make sure you have an avatar.
3. Aaron Wall - Topseos Complaints Awards 2012 • Bronze Winner | Follow Aaron Wall on Twitter

——-

You want a few hundred thousand spun press releases to go with that award, Alan?

Let me know.

Oh – and I forgot – if you want to keep your award – I want £1,000 a month for it. Or a beer. Whichever is easier.

——-

PS – Yes – Edward Lewis was also a champion of this – a truly animal reporter. Alan edged it by introducing a human element to the investigative journalism that was led by Edward, by actually interviewing the man behind Topseos. Aaron Wall featured as often, it takes someone with the celebrity he has to get the rest of the seo world to take notice.

PPS – I also emitted any single person’s name from the entries quoted from around the web, including the man, the myth, the legend behind topseos. The problem is with TOPSEOS – not one individual. This isn’t a witch hunt and I don’t want to besmirch any one person’s name.

This article is 100% MY OPINION BTW. And that opinion is that Topseos and their Top SEO Awards suck balls, wether they ‘work’ as advertising or not for the seo companies who want to be associated with them – which I hear they do – very well. Go figure.

Hobo – Topseos Complaints Awards 2012 bit.ly/z4D2mD

— Shaun Anderson (@Hobo_Web) January 18, 2012

 

*IMAGE CREDIT – THE MIRROR

Marketing Land have posted that Lady Gaga is on Google Plus – it really might be time to get on there, if you are not.

Although – don’t try searching Google for it – at the moment anyway – well, I couldn’t find it. Ironic – but then again Google does get a kicking for manipulating the results when it does.

THe no1 result for Lady Gaga Google Plus doesn’t exactly make Google look like the best search engine in the world.

 

Check out Hobo on Google Plus too

Welcome To Google+, Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga started posting yesterday on a verified Google+ account here:

Currently with 10,000 followers, Lady Gaga has about 46.5 million to go to match her Facebook page or 18 million to match her Twitter account.

TopSEOs Sewage Leaks To Scotland via @thedrum hobo.im/xBQQzf

— Shaun Anderson (@Hobo_Web) January 16, 2012

 

Man. I was so disappointed when I saw the Drum Magazine today – surely recognised as one of Scotland’s – and the UK’s –  top marketing and advertising publications – at least it used to be (or I had that impression) when I worked as a junior in ‘advertising’ in the 90s.

Why the disappointment?

For spreading, in my opinion, more TopSEOS sewage about. This time, wait for it – promoting “The number one SEO company in the UK” – LOL :

What an astonishing – even, misleading, claim to make about ANY SEO company in the UK.

Lets be clear – I don’t have a beef with the company mentioned – they are using a marketing channel – and it obviously works for them. Why they need to go into bed with Topseos I have no idea – we got @50 new business leads over the last 4 weeks without paid advertising – at all – anywhere – but that’s up to them – but if they want to put their name to that crap – they are putting themselves in the firing line. Big profits to make – it would seem.

My problem is actually with the Drum for spreading this sewage about companies WINNING AWARDS when they - according to many reports – ARE PAYING TOPSEOS TO WIN THESE AWARDS.

I asked the Drum if they were comfortable with that editorial on their site and (very nice of him, it has to be said) -

- the Drum’s editor, Gordon Young, replied:

Although The Drum likes to make sure all our editorial is as strong as possible, I have to confess we are not infallible. That is where we benefit from the strength of our online community who do a fantastic job providing additional balance where necessary, or at least putting forward alternative viewpoints from those reported in some of the news.

Apparently the content was not paid for, either.

So – this was an editorial?

Well this was a massive fail, in my opinion.

This one article has destroyed any trust I would have had in the Drum to publish accurate news. Hell, even publish accurate press releases.

The TopSEO website rates companies on a number of categories including needs analysis, keyword analysis, on page optimisation, off page optimisation and reporting methods.

That is laughable.

I don’t know of ONE respected SEO, from anywhere in the world, who has came forward and defended the practices of TopSEOS over the last few years – OR ANY of TOPSEOS astonishing claims.

I DO know of PLENTY of SEO who have came forward claiming Topseos awards and processes was – paraphrasing – a ‘joke’.

Want to see what the GLOBAL SEO COMMUNITY THINKS of Topseos and their worthless awards?

1. TopSEOS on Hobo previously
2. An informative new twist in the Topseos Awards, lead generation and accused copyright infringment (of article content) saga – opinion from Alan Bleiweiss on  TOPSEOs Deceptive Practices – An Interview with Jeev Trika
3. Topseos APPOLOGISE to “SEO industry” – http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/04/prweb3934014.htm – “SEO industry” not amused it seems.
4. Topseos APPOLOGISE to “SEO industry” – Alan’s response – http://searchmarketingwisdom.com/2010/04/topseos-apologizes-legit-or-more-deceptive-business/
5. More on Topseos here and here.
6. TopSEOs.com $15,000 per month listing fees
7. TopSEOs on Seobook – he knows a thing or two……
8. http://sphinn.com/story/146009
9. http://searchmarketingwisdom.com/2010/03/one-more-complaint-against-topseos-are-they-a-shakedown-operation-or-legitimate-service/
10. http://nickwilsdon.com/sem-industry-revolt-topseos-com/
11. http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/021947.html
12. http://www.netmagellan.com/why-i-dont-display-my-numerous-topseos-awards-811.html
13. http://www.vizioninteractive.com/top-seos-my-rant-continues/

FFS – Need I say more?

Seriously – these topseos awards are a disservice to this industry – and clients looking for good seo companies – everywhere. I can’t believe I am getting worked up about a crappy LEAD GENERATION site….but it annoys every time you go to Google and see these “TOP AWARDS” and “No1 SEO Company” all over PPC ads.

Ahem….trading standards?

Thank you – The Drum magazine – for spreading this sewage about in Scotland, and helping make it even harder to compete as a small SEO company in 2012.

HUGE disappointment.

Please join the many seo who have expressed dismay by tweeting this:

TopSEOs Sewage Leaks To Scotland via @thedrum hobo.im/xBQQzf

— Shaun Anderson (@Hobo_Web) January 16, 2012

 

Some interesting thoughts, some safe bets…… here’s some experienced seo people’s take on SEO 2012.

• 2012 search predictions: the experts’ view
• 8 Predictions for SEO in 2012
• Local Search in 2012: Where Should Your Focus Be?
• Predictions for local search in 2012

I tried to avoid the normal ‘the website is dead’ or ‘seo is dead’, ‘exact match domains don’t work’, or ‘anchor text doesn’t matter any more’ posts as I will post on that when I see it reflected in real results pages.

I think the earth shattering consensus is; mobile will be big and so will social media – so get a mobile site, and get on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

I still think your website should be the centre of your marketing world – not a social network. But then, I am not that much of a networker.

Some expect search engines to be more agressive in the Web Spam War – explicitly – shady linkbuilding practices – I always do – but sometimes I wonder if they (search engines) are even fighting that war anymore – electing more, to focus on the quality and type of sites at the top of results, at the tip of the iceberg that is Google search results. It would make sense to me – and looks that way.

Still – it’s probably a safe bet to aspire to gaining better links in 2012 and building a better website. I plan to.

Note – And remember the EU Cookie Privacy Directive… that might cause a few headaches for website owners of all kinds.

Update Jan 13 2012:

SEO

The following posts where highlighted on Marketing Land.

1. AffiliatePrograms.com: Top SEO Predictions for 2012
2. Business 2 Community: 2012 Will Divide SEO Practitioners Into Two Camps
3. Dejan SEO: SEO Predictions and Advice for 2012
4. eConsultancy: 2012 search predictions: the experts’ view
5. Fourth Source: Search Marketing Trends 2012
6. Freelance Writing Dreams: 2012 New Year SEO Predictions and Trends
7. Harvard Business Review: Google Will Change Web Marketing in 2012
8. Kaiserthesage: SEO Strategies and Inbound Marketing Best Practices for 2012
9. Outspoken Media: Build SEO Momentum in 2012, Not Resolutions
10. PromotionWorld: 12 SEO Resolutions for 2012
11. Search Engine Journal: 5 New Year Resolutions for SEO Consultants
12. Search Engine Land: An SEO Playbook For 2012
13. Search Engine Land: A Few Link Building Predictions For 2012
14. Search Engine Land: 9 New Year’s Resolutions For Link Building In 2012
15. Search Engine Watch: Biggest Search Events of 2011 & Predictions for 2012
16. Search Engine Watch: Search & Mobile Marketing Trends: SEO Apocalypse 2012
17. Search Engine Watch: 7 Quick Tips to Keep Your SEO On Track in 2012
18. SEOAndy.com: 18 Trends Which Will Change SEO in 2012
19. SEOmoz: 8 Predictions for SEO in 2012
20. Smart Traffic: Smart Traffic’s SEO Trends for 2012
21. StartupSmart: Five SEO trends to lookout for in 2012
22. State of Search: SEO 2012 – Will Schema Be A Factor
23. Straight Up Search: SEO Predictions for 2012
24. Vertical Measures: New Year’s Link-a-Lutions: Quality Link Building in 2012
25. Web Marketing Group: SEO Predictions for 2012 – Don’t Get Left Behind!
26. AffiliatePrograms.com: Top Affiliate Marketing Predictions for 2012
27. AM Navigator: 40 Affiliate Marketing Predictions for 2012
28. Marketing Land: How 2012′s Rise Of The Affiliate Channel Will Impact The $300B E-Commerce Industry

Marketing Land has lots more seo predictions for 2012 here.

If any website on the web is caught buying links, normally the website cannot rank for a lot of its valuable keywords.

Looks like the same website ranks for the same keywords.

Not much of a penalty.

Well, I’ve seen worse…..

In case you don’t know what I am on about – Google penalised itself again yesterday for breaking it’s own rules. It KIND of HAD to. Even though by all accounts (I saw on one of the articles at Search Engine Land) that they may in fact be able to blame a marketing company on this one – although I have no idea on the accuracy of that one.

That aside – Google has gave us a pretty decent Website Reconsideration Request template if you ever need one….

Google (REPLACE WITH COMPANY IN QUESTION) never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.

Apparently they considered giving themselves a Google Pagerank penalty for 60 days too ….. I thought that was interesting. Google Japan got a pagerank penalty that lasted the best part of a year, not that long ago….. Beat That Quote (also owned by Google) is still penalised I think.

Seems a little preposterous, all this.

You can get the full story (broke by the SEOBook community) with a glance at Search Engine Land’s home page.

Oops…… good browser, too.

I sat in a meeting recently when a ‘newish’ client – showed me a free “seo audit” for the website I have been employed to promote for the last few months.

Apparently, it failed, just about everything.

It failed W3C validation tests. It’s H1-H6 elements weren’t optimised properly. Download speeds could be optimised. Some pages titles like the ‘About” page needed optimised more. Apparently I wasn’t hitting the correct keyword density on every page. Apparently I didn’t have the correct amount of text on every page. No Xml sitemap. No sitemap. Apparently also my meta descriptions weren’t optimised for click throughs. I hadn’t even went through the 200 pages and emphasised text in bold and italics.

In short – client site failed this seo audit.

Of course – a seo salesman doesn’t come around to your offices in the middle of nowhere to tell you your site is fantastic and you dont need him. All it takes is 1 hour and an seo audit and a seo salesman to make an ignorant client a bit nervous about what’s actually going on.

The person who ran the seo audit actually didn’t detect the last 4 months work that’s been done to improve rankings across the board – including making the website rank for the most valuable single-keyword term ( with 33,100 exact match searches a month – one of the top 250 transactional terms we have identified we need visibility on) to number 4 in Google – from a start position of nowhere in the top 100 results.

It will be tough to get to number 1 even with this legitimate site as there is at least 2 websites aggressively spamming search engines with assured stellar results. This one keyword captured - ranking progress illustrated below – is actually this month’s top performing keyword though.

I’m lucky the types of clients I have trust us to know what’s important.

A seo campaign goes something like this at Hobo. You pay us £XXX a month or employ us for 6 months or a year and we’ll do the above – i.e. improve the visibility of your site in the top trafficked keywords results pages – to lots of keywords in your niche. How much you spend with us will determine how many hours in the studio you get. We’ll get your site on the top ten listings for as many of the most valuable keyterms in your niche if it is at all possible within that budget. How competitive your niche is – and how hard the competition is spending – will determine how long it will take to win battles for top rankings on money terms.

The only thing we can promise is we will work hard and try to make your site accessible, relevant, trusted and ‘popular’.

Immediately after we’ve carried out keyword research, we’ll ADDRESS THE MOST IMPORTANT ON-PAGE ELEMENTS FIRST and we’ll start to get links to the site – as it is LINKS THAT MAKES RELEVANT PAGES RANK in competitive verticals.

Every site is different – every campaign start-focus is slightly different. We’ll follow search engine guidelines as closely as possible to ensure any improvements will be long-term.

For me the most important on-site aspects are PAGE TITLES - especially if they are terrible to begin with – (but often I might leave them till later – if they are relevant and reasonably well formed), visible and unique ON PAGE TEXT CONTENT & INTERNAL Links.

I don’t do keyword metatags – I dont bold keywords unless it seems natural – I don’t do H1 headers WHILE there are page titles to ponder or links to get. I dont do H2 + H3 – I wont make the site valid html at this point either – because even if it IS a small benefit to seo – this importance pales in comparison to getting some quality links – and I have tested both sides of the story etc – etc etc – I dont go near that stuff until I am sure the important stuff I highlighted above is rolling and the client is seeing keyword rankings improve and then traffic and conversions up.

Sure, there’s a time to look at minutiae, but it’s rarley this early in a campaign for me.

With over over a decade experience doing this sort of thing, if someone needs me to get a site ranking for certain keywords in a VERY competitive niche –  gives me £1000 budget – @10 hours work – I am NOT going to spend those ten hours making a site pass a validator test or some fancy online seo tool – or it will be a short contract indeed.

I am NOT going to make sure each page is keyword stuffed in H1,H2,H3H4,H5,H6 tags.

If I saw anybody in the Hobo studio spending time working out the keyword density of a page I would be disappointed to say the least.

I am NOT going to spend the rest of those hours making a site download a second faster. I am NOT going to go through pages making the odd keyword BOLD.

In short – I am not going to waste a clients budget – especially at a time in the contract when the client is expecting to see some rankings changes. I am going to focus on the important stuff and the important pages.

A SEO who sits and wades through a site ticking all of these GRANULAR ‘seo factors’ is fooling themselves they are doing a days SEO work – or that these subtle changes will have a massive impact in a competitive SERP.

They might well be working hard – but ask yourself – what’s more important – a proper H2 tag or a link from another REAL website? I know what I would take. Why would I EVER waste time thinking of H2 tags or other minutiae if my job is to rank for an ultra competitive term or long tail variations of it when I know a link is better? Why twaek an H2 when I could publish a new post targeting a slightly different keyphrase?

I like to use my time better.

Some SEO may win business with a 5 minute seo audit and then proceed to make that websites seo ‘score’ perfect. Most of the tools available these days offer some sort of on page seo analysis – no doubt to give the perceived value of added benefit of paying their monthly fees) – and then the seo proceeds to make the site get a 100% score based on that audit.

The seo can then can say to a client – hey – look at your score! We have optimised your site! We have done what we said we would – this is industry best standards! Now pay up.

Problem is of course with an approach like this – the client’s primary keyword is often still on page 6 of that competitive serp.

WHY? Because the competition isn’t wasting time on the minutiae you have been slogging away on. And Google isn’t using the same seo score your seo is.

The type of seo who uses such tactics have probably fooled themselves into thinking they are working hard – or that the seo they are doing is “legitimate seo’ – and it suits search engines themselves to encourage this philosophy and encourage people to build a better site rather than spam their search engine. Do anything – just dont build links.

SEO deployed in this manner in a competitive niche is akin to putting a go-faster stripe on a ferrari to make it, ummm, go faster.

While you are bolding your keywords your competition is linkbuilding their way – and sometimes outright spamming their way – into top positions in search engines. Some seo know this – some don’t.

Not all seo tools are crap. But most seem to report back on lots of near-pointless stuff – JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN. It makes these types of tools ‘more valuable’…. they do ‘more stuff’.

Ask for INDEPENDENT proof why optimising H1 tags will make a page rank higher. Ask for documented proof why you should bold your keywords. Ask for documented proof why having valid HTML will outrank invalid pages ranking top in Google today. Ask just why a 300 word article outranks a page with 3 words on it - or in some cases – doesn’t. Ask why those competitors are ranking above you and what search engines are doing about it.

If you are in a competitive niche – ask where your primary keyterm will be in Google after you take an already reasonably optimised site and make all these seo tweaks which could suck the life out of an entire budget…. and see if your seo’s guess in six months is anywhere near accurate.

Google apparently uses over 200 factors to rank a page, each dialed slightly differently every day, to keep the search engine results an enigma to crack.

If I had a choice of being told those two hundred factors or have ONE SLIGHTLY KEYWORD STUFFED PAGE and the right 199 links…… I would take the latter every day.

SEO auditing as part of an ongoing campaign, focusing on the important aspects of SEO, with BUDGET in mind, that recommends the most cost effective course of action, to get the most reward quickest, is invaluable.

Beware of free seo audits – most can be run off in 5 minutes using or SEO Powersuite (Aff) or SEOmoz - (which aren’t total crap it’s fair to say – SEOMOZ at least discriminates against important and less important factors).

What I AM saying is lots of seo tools will get you focusing on elements of your pages when your time is probably better spent getting some decent links to your site – some local quality links for a start – or just adding more pages of actual text content to your site.

If your site isn’t performing in Google or Bing – try some keyword research, followed by optimising your page titles and internal links based on this and then beef these pages out with a little more relevant content – all the while – adding NEW content –  and then try and get some links to your site.

I stepped back from blogging in 2011 to concentrate on work – but it would take a sh*tload of tweets to pump this out……

All the best for 2012.

SEOChicks have a competition to win tickets to SES London and free seo mentoring - all you need to do is do a blog post about what SEO will be like in 2022. If you are new to seo this could be well worth it – and a great launchpad for somebody new to seo.

Topic: A lot has happened in SEO in the past 10 years, what will happen in the next 10 years. Tell us what you think SEO will be like in 2022. The entry can be anything from a serious blogpost on SEO and its development to a fun futuristic view of SEO, or maybe an interview with yourself in the future. It’s up to you.

We have put together a truly galaxy class competition for all SEO cadets out there. Have you been in SEO LESS than 2 YEARS or WANT TO GET IN TO SEO? Then YOU are the next generation SEO, and WE would like to help you become the best SEO cadet that you can be.

The enterPRIZE:

1 FULL CONFERENCE pass to SES LONDON 2012 (21st-23rd February)
AND access to ClickZ Training Academy (Monday 20th February). Courtesy of the guys at SES Conference Series.

3 Months MENTORING with the SEO-Chicks!
YOU will have access to ALL of the SEO-Chicks to help you with any questions or guidance you need. You will also get to meet a bunch of us (Lisa, Nichola, Judith & Annabel) at one of the days of SES London to discuss your mentoring plan.

How to ENTER the competition:

Create a blogpost OR a video

….. that’s not bad at all for a couple of hours work and a great chance to mingle with folks who make a living in this game. See the post on SEO chicks for more.

 

Years ago I would have jumped on this and see if I could modify it for self promotion but I must be getting sensible in my old age.

Look at the first organic listing and see how apparently easy it is to crack even Google’s own SERP listing in Google.co.uk listings.

Some free advertising for coinflation.com and (after 10 seconds investigation) all because they linked to Google Adwords.

I wonder if it is legal to intentionally modify a web sites Google serp snippet – just by taking advantage of the way Google handles links sometimes, or the way a web page or server is configured? It’s probable that this is accidental too….

I’m not sure when this happened but I dont see any mention of it anywhere.

After hiding the cached results link in the preview panel that now pops up in search results, it seems as though Google has now stopped telling us via the cached results:

“these terms only appear in links pointing to this page“

While this was always a pretty inaccurate statement for the cached pages to declare (as sometimes the keywords were not in links but from other sources – for instance, from a previous cached version of the page).

I always found this information in cached pages useful – when looking at backlink profiles to investigate weird ranking results – or ranking anomalies/false positives.

This feature of Google cache was also very useful when testing, for fun, some aspects of seo and link building, especially anchor text attribution. It was always useful to really investigate why a page ranked for a keyword, for instance, when the word was not on the actual page. You could often catch a glimpse of link building efforts that worked looking at this – which led to a few surprises, more often than not.

Now Google cache only tells us ‘

These search terms are highlighted:

Pity.

Yet another small window on determining how Google might ‘work,’ at a granular level, quietly goes away.

What makes a page spam?:

• Hidden text or links – may be exposed by selecting all page text and scrolling to the bottom (all text is highlighted), disabling CSS/Javascript, or viewing source code
• Sneaky redirects – redirecting through several URLs, rotating destination domains cloaking with JavaScript redirects and 100% frame
• Keyword stuffing – no percentage or keyword density given; this is up to the rater
• PPC ads that only serve to make money, not help users
• Copied/scraped content and PPC ads
• Feeds with PPC ads
• Doorway pages – multiple landing pages that all direct user to the same destination
• Templates and other computer-generated pages mass-produced, marked by copied content and/or slight keyword variations
• Copied message boards with no other page content
• Fake search pages with PPC ads
• Fake blogs with PPC ads, identified by copied/scraped or nonsensical spun content
• Thin affiliate sites that only exist to make money, identified by checkout on a different domain, image properties showing origination at another URL, lack of original content, different WhoIs registrants of the two domains in question
• Pure PPC pages with little to no content
• Parked domains

More at Search Engine Watch

OOOhhhh! It is always interesting to get your hands on one of these quality raters handbooks, from a PPC or SEO point of view……

Google Search Quality Rating Guidelines PDF

We have been tipped off of a revised Google Quality Rating Guidelines handbook that has been leaked. It has been over three and a half years since we last saw a leaked Google Quality Raters Handbook and that document was from back in April 2007. We have secured the March 30, 2011 version 3.18 of the Google Search Quality Rating Guidelines handbook used by Google Search Quality Raters around the world. To download the 125 page document click here and it will download the 2.3MB PDF document.

More about the 2011 google quality raters handbook at Search Engine Land (It would be impolite to link direct to the PDF)

UPDATE- Google forced SEL and others to remove the 2011 version of the quality raters handbook. While you can still get it (if you know what to search for) they don’t seem that concerned with the 2007 version – and there’s not a huge amount of difference.

If you search for using something like “filetype:pdf Google Guidelines for Quality Raters” in Google you’ll find the 2007 version – and maybe the 2011 guide.

So i got up this morning and looked at one the Google serps I was interested in and spotted a new competitor had came from nowhere to grab a few decent positions. Curious as to how they had achieved it (!), I thought I would have a look at their back-link profile.

My first destination these days is usually Majestic SEO as it’s so easy to pick out the info I need (although Link Research Tools is still a great tool to go deeper into link analysis – especially when reporting).

Only two tactics where employed.

• VERY, VERY, VERY low quality article marketing. I mean – this stuff would depress even Paul Madden. 100% Irrelevant, auto-generated articles that didn’t make an ounce of sense –  with a link – just bolted on – at the bottom of the page… just sort of floating there. Sigh….oh well.
• The second tactic was blog commenting.
• Not a quality link in the entire backlink profile.

Not exactly the most defensible strategy – even though it is currently WORKING as a strategy.

I will now sit back for a few weeks and see how Google responds to this type of linkbuilding in this vertical, aim to do it better, and if I want – go and drop a link on the 300 unmoderated blog posts this seo has pointed out (thank you) and immediatley compete in this vertical – especially if we implement a more traditional quality link outreach campaign (via the media etc).

The lesson here, probably,  is to mix it up! If you are at the top of Google on ONLY one or two link-building tactics that can EASILY be duplicated by a competitor – it’s not long before someone comes along and copies it and/or does it better.

This competitive backlink analysis by Jane Copland goes into this tactic – though acutally recommends caution with it, obviously –  and a few other tactics are investigated –  and is worth a read if you are new to this sort of thing……

Check this out:

 

Yup – That’s Google updating my friend’s Malcolm’s sitelinks nearly INSTANTLY with a story he was lucky enough to publish a few moments (p*&^%!!) before me about the Daily Mail’s Fake Amanda Knox Story…. which of course they then deleted.

Want Better Google sitelinks? Well…. break some news and get popular.

PS – When I say *lucky* I mean the Google sitelinks – not Malcolm beating me to the scoop lol. THat was a job well done. Next time I think I will just create a fake story beforehand – just in case

The Daily Mail, as expected, DELETED their fake Amanda Knox story lol

See the highlights to remember from this fake Amanda Knox story?

DISCOVERED ON GOOGLE NEWS….Daily Mail Publishes Wrong GUILTY Story with FAKE ‘details’ as Amanda Knox Freed ROFL!!

Well… it would be if the article wasn’t shocking.

Here’s the Daily Mail publishing two totally different stories on the Amanda Knox Trial and it’s LOL FUNNY.

Story 1. – Amanda Knox Guilty!

THAT’s how journalism works these days – have both stories ready so they can publish quickly and be first to get the traffic from Google etc. But just LOOK at the detail they go into in the WRONG STORY.

100% FABRICATION .

Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that ‘justice has been done’ although they said on a ‘human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail’.

LOL.

As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears. A few feet away Meredith’s mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.

Oops!

Following the verdict Knox and Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away.

And Apparently:

Amanda Knox looked stunned this evening after she dramatically lost her prison appeal against her murder conviction

LOL

Hang on. All that is bollocks as she was, in fact, acquitted :)

The CORRECT STORY was published later by the Daily Mail lol

Story 2. – Amanda Knox Free! Correct well done

My friend Malcolm Coles has a post up and got his up just before me damn him! Like Malcolm I saw it on Google News. WOW! What a screw up – and what a price to pay for being first to break the news….

Want news? Probably better just getting a Twitter account these days…..

I think this malmaison serp deserves some QDF (query deserves freshness) to mix it up a little lol.

Actually – it would be funny – but try this tactic – essentially minisites tailored to a geographic region – with a site that’s NOT a big brand and see what happens!

In fact – I will show you!

Yup! YOURS may well be classed as a DOORWAY PAGE in 2011 – even if you have no external links

Companies worth over £300 million can breathe a sigh of relief apparently….. well, according to this SERP. It will be interesting to see how this develops…

I don’t usually talk about other companies but this is a SERP that might be worth watching…. it’s just so – out there!

Hi Matt. If we add more than one links from page A to page B, do we pass more PageRank juice and additional anchor text info? Also can you tell us if links from A to A count?

STOP PRESS – All-round nice guy and official representative for Google published a a video recently telling us how Google USED to work according to the original Pagerank formula!

I suppose there’s a good attempt at explaining Pagerank in simple terms with fingers for those new to seo. Or at least, how it used to work. Let’s face it – Google Pagerank works differently than it used to.

He mentioned something like he ‘wasn’t going to get into anchor text flow’ (or as some call First Link Priority) – in this scenario, which is, actually, a much more interesting discussion.

Pity.

But the silence on anchor text and priority – or what counts and what doesn’t, is, perhaps, confirmation that Google has some sort of ‘link priority’ when spidering multiple links to a page from the same page and assigning relevance or ranking scores.

I’m pretty sure, from plenty of observations I’ve made in the past, that this is indeed the case. I have seen a few examples where I *thought* might contradict my own findings, but on closer examination, most could not be verified. It’s a lot harder today to isolate this sort of thing – but Google is designed that way.

I think, as the years go by – we’re supposed to forget how Google works under the hood of all that fancy GUI, BTW.

Simple answer, for me is, expect ONE link – the first link –  out of multiple links on a single page pointing at one other page – to pass anchor text value. Follow that advice with your most important key phrases in at least the first link when creating multiple links and you don’t need to know about first link priority.

A quick seo test I did a long time ago throws up some interesting questions today – but the changes over the years at Google since I did my test will have an impact what is shown – and the fact is – the test environment was polluted long before now.

I still think about first link priority when creating links on a page.

It is possibly, a powerful good practice when inter-linking your pages.

I had hoped watching this video MC answered that point about anchor text. Maybe next time.

—————————————-

Do let me know if you have a view on ‘first link priority’ – if you consider it – or if you think differently. If you have heard of MC talking about the flow of anchor text in this fashion – let me know – as I havent seen it…. I might even give this a test again.

If you don’t know, there are lots more of these videos for noobs at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp

Want to know more about first link priority theories? It’s an interesting and sometimes hotly debated discussion – well, it used to be. Perhaps it is the case, the first link priority is not a short answer for MC to give, and by answering it, it opens a can of worms for him. The rule ITSELF probably has nuances, when nofollow is added to the mix, for instance, etc etc.

Interesting seo geek stuff anyway….

• http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/1st-internal-link-counts/
• http://andybeard.eu/1775/first-link-priority-is-stompernet-wrong.html
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/results-of-google-experimentation-only-the-first-anchor-text-counts

Hmmmm – has Google keyword tool been updated? I can paste a LOT more keywords into the search box (which previously had been limited to 100 was it not?).

I have been doing keyword research solid for the last 4 weeks and last week for a short time Google Keyword Tool also let me EXPORT more than 800 keywords at a time. Well, it let me do it once. Perhaps this is old news – I do have a very formulaic approach to keyword research – I might not have got the memo.

It might be the case that Google is going to give us a much more useful keyword tool in the near future.

I wonder what that will do to keyword data companies.

UPDATE: Apparently I was correct:

 

This is interesting….it’s the first time in a UK search I have seen Google testing (I think) AJAX to display more results instead of visitors clicking to the second and third page of Google search results etc – as has been traditional for over ten years. It should be noted my guy was signed into Google Plus when we took the screenshot.

With this new pagination – IS GOOGLE PREPARING TO MAKE IT”S SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGES (SERPS) INFINITE SCROLLING?

It is going to be interesting to see what impact this has on click through rates.

Traditionally of course – you need to click to go to page 2 and 3 etc using the device pictured below – but as you can see these have been removed from the SERPS shown above.

Mega sitelinks have been spotted in Google searches by web masters for some navigational queries. Google started testing these a few days ago – and I see it rolling out to other sites as of today – although it’s clear it hasn’t rolled out everywhere.

These enhanced search listings might be here to stay……

Did you get Mega Sitelinks?

If you are lucky – perhaps you’ll get new mega site links, like the ones keen Webmasterworld visitors recently spotted…… mega site links is a pretty decent name for them – it’s what I immediately thought. Google is at least testing these new site-links in some countries, presumably to ensure you hit the right site when you perform navigational queries….

and that’s as opposed to:

I’d imagine this sort of mega site links could really help you out if a business has a crap online reputation in which case it could push a lot of negative media below the fold….. then again, you’ll need to have quite a lot of domain authority to get handed these I would imagine.

From a website owner it’s a great thing – but for a Google user?

I’d imagine if a company has a terrible press –  as a user it is useful to see that bad pr on the first page of Google as well…. I wonder if this one will stick.

I’m tracking a page on this site that, all of a sudden, in April 2011, seemed to have a lot of trouble ranking for terms it ranked well for maybe years… even though it’s well cited, original content. I wonder if it has something to do with Google PANDA. I’ve purposely left it alone to see what happens……

Google Panda, if you don’t know, is what seo (and Google employees) are calling the latest changes to how Google ranks pages and SEL have a good round up of when they think it hit sites…..

Google may have rolled them out just a bit earlier or later than those exact days. The bigger issue is that you can see a trend developing. About every month, Google reruns its Panda algorithm. Each time Panda is run, there’s a chance some hit from the last update will improve, while other sites might see traffic drops. In between updates, changes people may make specifically in hopes of fixing a Panda problem won’t show any impact until the next update is run.

So far, the Google Panda update schedule has been like this:

• Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011
• Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011 (about 7 weeks later)
• Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011 (about  4 weeks later)
• Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011 (about 5 weeks later)
• Panda Update 2.3: July 23, 2011 (about 5 weeks later - The 2.1 to 2.3 dates are approximate.)

Those later dates seem to correlate a little with the graph above, which makes my page all the more interesting, as I did do a few things to that page back in the day to test some stuff…..

I’ll post on it if I get some definitive answers…..

PS Still on holiday so comments closed. I will be on Twitter or Google Plus though….

I see the Google Plus Iphone App is available to download.

Shiney.